(7) Sat Jun 26 2004 11:24 PSTWaffling:
Still having hard-to-diagnose problems with Ping-O-Matic. Good thing I have more food stuff to write about.

I made banana-buttermilk waffles today, and they were a big hit. I thought about making banana-buttermilk-cornmeal waffles but I don't know how many adjectives you can pile on "waffles" before the waffles start to fall apart. I got a Belgian waffle maker as part of my getting-a-kitchen shopping spree; Belgian waffles are the least soggy and I can't stand soggy waffles. My particular waffle maker is designed to be flipped over after you put in the batter, in an obsessive bid to spread around the air bubbles and prevent any possible sogginess. My kind of waffle maker!

The waffle maker instructions say to put chili on top of a waffle and have it for lunch. I guess that could work. Seems like the gateway to waffle obsession, though.

In the decade of the 1950s, there was such a waffle obsession. People had "waffle parties" with all kinds of toppings. My parents had a huge Sunbeam waffle iron, the likes of which I have never seen, that made four waffles at a time. Even later, when I was a girl, we were still being taught to serve waffles for supper with chicken a la King or creamed tuna with peas atop. (I don't think I ever did either one.) My mother, who made waffles for supper almost every Sunday night, sometimes made waffles containing bits of chopped ham and grated cheese.

Frances, my mom had that waffle iron! It was ancient and had a woven cord insulator instead of a rubber one. It hissed and smoked and kicked our pets, but it made some darn fine waffles.

I've yet to come up with a good waffle mix recipe for my own tiny Belgian waffle maker; if I make them as sweet as I want them, I end up with scorched brown waffles because of all the sugar. Perhaps I should be using buttermilk.